Bihar: Rs 5.85 lakh looted from Uco Bank in Begusarai; cashier injured

PATNA: At least half a dozen heavily armed unidentified criminals looted Rs 5.85 lakh from Uco bank branch at Akopur village under Cheria Bariyarpur police station area of Begusarai in Bihar on Tuesday.
Cashier Nishant Kumar received severe head injury as he was thrashed by the criminals during the loot, police said.
The loot amount could have been much more as Rs 1 crore was scheduled to be brought at the branch that time from the bank’s main branch in Begusarai.
The incident took place between 12noon to 12.15pm when there were around 25 customers inside the bank.
When asked, branch manager Mohammad Parvez told TOI over phone that the team on way to bring Rs 1 crore was stopped from doing so immediately soon after the criminal fled from the branch.
He said altogether Rs 5,85,125 was looted.
“There is no dedicated security guard for the branch. It is the patrolling team of the concerned police station which visits the branch each day at around 1pm,” he said.
Parvez said there were three officers, one sub-staff and at least 25 to 30 customers inside the branch when four criminals had barged inside the bank premises.
“They hit Nishant hard in the head with a pistol butt from which resulted in severe bleeding. They had asked him to give up all cash but in nervousness, he was unable to follow instructions which annoyed the criminals,” he said.
The manager said that everyone inside the premises was taken hostage at gunpoint and criminals forced the bank employees to open the iron vault.
“They collected all the money from the vault as well as from the cash counter and fled,” he said.
A villager Lalit Bharti told this newspaper that six criminals on three bikes were spotted reaching at the spot.
“They knew the branch’s layout. They directly went towards the cashier,” he said.
Bharti said that the criminals stayed inside the branch for more than 10 minutes and fled easily without any resistance.
“They didn’t even care to lock anyone inside or take away cell phones,” he said.
Bharti said that the criminals, after going 700metres ahead of the branch, turned towards a village road leading Rampur Ghat bridge built over Burhi Gandak.
“That way leads to different areas including towards Samastipur. The criminals might have escaped out of the district,” he said.
Meanwhile, Cheria Bariyarpur police station SHO Ravishankar Prasad said that police were going through the CCTV camera footage of the branch to figure out clues about the identity of the criminals.
“Raids were going on to nab them,” he added.